Finally I can heave a sigh of relief…
I can now see myself as a student again rather than an intern trying to experience the real life. Ten weeks of internship was definitely hard, pushing my way up to meet the demands of my working schedule and duties. I knew I was not meant not be perfect as the situation reckons and I am pleased that I missed out some details in the course of it. I knew I was still in my learning process so I rather cared not to overload my capable memory. Anyways, things went on pretty well contradictory to my anticipations.
I still have the better part of my memory to refresh the days that I hovered in that dark dungeon. Hope it can make some sense after years of writing it.
Who can forget the 4th of Jan when I slipped through the transparent glass door into the main lobby with my little luggage. At that moment, I didn’t know that, that would be my first and last entry from that door; otherwise I would have looked around to feel the honor of entering. Anyways, clearing away the red carpet welcome, I was not surprised to be ushered into the orientation program for 3 days. I welcomed it coz I really wanted to late my training. Within these days, I was shown my accommodation and also got to know my first cell.
I very much wanted to monitor myself in the FO and I did prove lucky in that. From the very beginning, things appeared to be leading to somewhere else. It was really boring to be sitting in the chair with the thick book to read from apart from the very little notes that I had to scribble down as fast as it came out from the narrator- none other than my supervisor (Kak-sue). It was real bugging when the lecture ended and I was left with the only option to keep staring at the pages. That was just the introduction to my boredom. The briefing period was dirt in my bin. I was told to introduce. Ok, I did that but the Q&A session that followed it was real nerve-racking. Asking all sorts of questions and all the questions came bombarding at the same time. How annoying can that be? Anyways, I admit my first day was boring coz I was new and I needed time to cope up. But when my 2nd and 3rd day went in the same way, I felt really fucked up. 2nd day, I went to business centre to learn about it and the facilities which was pretty interesting but that interest just went flat when I was told not to touch anything coz I was new. That was a bitter start to the just sitting job.
By the 3rd day, I started picking up calls which was real clumsy at the start. I had to memorize the standards followed and of course follow the entire SOP. AYS- At Your service, felt nice when I was active, I mean picking up calls, and taking down request. Room service order was pretty challenging coz I had to know the selection of the food and the choices but it wasn’t that hard. So, I was happy. The hardest part came when I had to parrot learn the extension no. of the hotel. Damn, it sweats a hell lot out of me but luckily I managed to do that within the time frame I allocated for myself. Meanwhile I picked up little knowledge everyday which was very satisfying. There are less embarrassing moments to be narrated in FO except for the shouts form the Room service guy. Poor me! I got blamed for somebody else’s mistake but I better got to clarify it which I gladly did. But there is a one odd situation I had to face with this local Chinese guest. I wasn’t even at the base of the fault but since I chanced to pick up his phone I was the victim. Let me narrate it in a short detail. The guest had asked for 2 bath towel and mineral water which my associate attended. When I picked up his second call, he was bit angry for the no service. So again I page the runner and inform the housekeeping. Unluckily it was again me who picked up his 3rd call. Now he was really angry and started shouting at me, yelling at me at the top of his voice and demanding the duty manager. All I can say was sorry and hung up. Damn I was so pissed off. Nobody shouted at me like that, so as natural as the reaction can be after getting beaten, I broke into soft tears. In fact it was a slow service and the guest badly needed a towel coz he was going to have his shower and he had used the entire towel wet. Poor him and poor me! Instantly, I closed my line and didn’t pick up calls for the next 20 min or so.
I still remember how I wished I can quit that dep’t at the earliest but the HR’s minimum allocation was one month. But even after bearing the 30 days, when they didn’t change my dep’t, I was really angry at them. I needed a change coz it was boring with less occupancy and besides my FO manager (Linda Tee) always got something to say to me. I mean she got very informative things to say to me. Correcting me when I am wrong but pushing it to her way which I really don’t seem to accept. Way of a hell, she always had problem with my grooming, accent and the way I talk on the phone. Nobody got problem with my accent, so why she alone? . Damn, I hate that. One thing, I never got to understand, why is that make up so damn necessary? Damn, service centre, nobody gives a damn look at it. But my supervisor eye is always hungry for the thick makeup to be seen on me. But I know myself, I cared less about it. So they left me alone. I am happy I did that. I am too lazy and less feminine when it comes to makeup. Well, business centre was mildly boring. No guest means, no work. So I schedule time to sneak out at the internet and play games. I hate that idleness… so I really wanted to go to another dep’t to look out for a change plus I had that feeling that if I stayed a bit longer in FO, my appraisal form will come out as a shit which unfortunately happened! It really panged me hard to see that I got fair for my performance. I acknowledge I am not perfect but you can just underestimate my capabilities. I think I did far better than some of the new associates. She never worked close with me to grade me fair but I am helpless. Nothing can be done about it.
Now I am referring to transfer to another dep’t. Housekeeping… the moment I know about it, I was like... WTF!!!!!!! I am too odd for housekeeping. Besides, I had to imagine all those foreign contract workers. Besides, it never took even a second to flash back the moment I had to share. I still remember, I ran heavily for my break just to be in time to catch up my friend for dinner. Fate was never with me and this time it proved itself very well. I opened the door of the hop-shop (staff cafeteria), it was damn crowded because of the heavy staff in duty. Luckily I managed to find my friend sitting at the corner table with her nearly emptied plate. I followed the course to the food counter to find all the service platters empty. So I just sat next to her watching her wipe her mouth. Suddenly, I heard my name being called. I looked around to find the concierge boy waving at me. I went to him and that crazy guy instead of talking to me, shouted at me. He was trying to tell the Indian and Nepalese workers that he knows me very well. Damn, he was pointing to an Indian housekeeping attendant and telling me that the guy likes me and wanna know more about me. Damn, how I wished I could give him a hard spank! I just ignored his words and sat down. He was not the one to give up. He came at the table and shouted the same thing again, more loudly this time. All the people in the cafeteria were now staring at us. I nicely told him that it was really embarrassing for me but the guy won’t give a damn. I can still remember his exact lines “there’s nothing to be embarrassing. He likes you and wanna know you more. He is also Indian”! seriously, that fuckin guy made every head turn around. I just whispered to myself and ignored him. So after a while he went away. Damn, I hate him… that day was the last of him to come near me.
Anyways, my first day at HK was quite nice. I went for mini-bar service. It was easy but bit tiring after my 2 months of sitting down. It is a job to check the mini-bar stock, replace the items and charge it to the room if it was consumed.
My 2nd day started with my assignment in the room. Room make up was quite easy coz they followed almost the same procedure as we were taught in the college. I mostly did bathroom makeup. Wiping the glass door, mirror, cleaning the toilet bowl, the floor and arrange the amenities and the linens. Bed making was damn easy except for pulling out the heavy divan. Public area was the shittiest and the most embarrassing coz you have to clean all the guest area. That includes all the guest restrooms and the outlets and lounge. I still remember the boil that I got on my finger after sweeping the huge coffeehouse. The worst of all jobs was my day in the VIP female restroom. My damn good PA supervisor (Narayan) made me as a standby for the toilet and he actually made me to stay in the toilet for 8 long hours. How fucking does that sound? I got nothing to do. I wanted to sleep but no place expect for the toilet units. That was real shit. So I cleaned the clean mirrors and see myself staring into the mirror. Other times, I just wait for the guest to come out of the toilet then go and check if she has flushed it properly or not and wipe if there’s any spills. Damn, I hate myself for doing that. Once I was out, I slammed at the PA supervisor, but all he can do was to laugh at my frustration!
Linen was easy and nice coz I got to talk and joke around. All I had to do was to issue the uniforms and arrange the new sets of uniforms according to the number of the specific dep’t and send the dirty clothes to the laundry. That was all. So I slept a while, eat a while and chat a while with Mia. That was nice.
Clerk say in a sense was boring coz it is the same as that of an operator except that it is now HK and I had to check pigeon holes, update the white board and record down everything. But I had to be me, so I sneaked out and stay in the linen room after my morning round.
One day of room supervising, I followed my Room supervisor (govinda) from Nepal. He showed me around and went to inspect a suite room, a deluxe room and a twin room. We had a good chat. He talked about his fucking job here and said he wanted to go back to Nepal; Just waiting for his contract to get over. That was the end of my supervising. I was glad that it was so easy. He he.
Well, for my remaining days in housekeeping, I took turns to go to every section but most of the time it was rooms. The Bangladeshi workers are damn irritating. They talk to me in Hindi, mixed with bangla. How the hell am I suppose to decipher it. But I tried and it worked out quite fine at least I got a damn irritating company better for nothing at all.
The toughest part of my training was to interact with the people. I always have this problem of communicating with new faces. I just don’t understand how to make an approach and strengthen the ties. But this time I am glad that I spoke to fewer people and made friends with some really good people. But it looks to me as if quite a lot of people already know me. That what my friend says. That was funny coz I only get stares when I am around but it looks like those stares were more than just stares. Sometimes it’s frightening. Talking of stares, I remember the banquet guy who always gazes at me in the business centre whenever he passes by. I must admit his guts when he walked into the business centre one fine day and started introducing himself. He was trying to flirt around but me being me, I wasn’t so obvious of it until the day he brought some flowers and started telling me that he wanted to give me 13 red roses if I accept it. So I politely turn down the offer and picked the yellow daisy meaning to be just friends. He just walked away. After that whenever I met him, I noticed he won’t say hi or hello. He will directly jump to the line “I miss you”… that was really queer coz he never knew me to miss me.
One thing, I got to know the importance of alarm clock. The heavy 7am-3pm shift made me flat without my sleep! So I forced myself to sleep in the locker room with the dead cockroaches scattered around the beds. It was damn filthy.
Days crawled with the tick of the seconds and the tock of the minute. Hours seems longer when I count every minute… I dreaded for the long days and hoped for the short hours to snail by… but now I am glad I can count those days as my YESTERDAY!
Much of much has happened and many things are said unwritten. I hope I can decipher my lines when I look back at it of queer experience and memories. It was a mixture of hate and compulsion but definitely not love and liking… I made some good friends, some bad eye sores and few fuckers. But somehow things have crept inside my life with a good approach. I can relate quite well to the working life now. I can visualize the stress of this industry when the staff takes out their anger on the cigarette they smoke and curse a wild with the heavy smoke they throw out. I am glad that I am free from answering the same questions asked every day. Trainee or permenant? Oh! Trainee? Vich kolej? How long? Whr r u 4om? Indya? Y u so fair? U don’t luk like Indian. U luk local> Wats ur name? R u japenese? Malay faham? Ooooo…….
I GUESS IT IS MUCH OF A PART OF LIFE TO FLIRT AROUND, JOKE A LINE, CURSE LOUD MEANWHILE YOU LIVE WITH YOUR FEARS, SMILE THROUGH THE TEARS AND LAUGH ALOUD WITH THE ECHO AND VOICES.
P.S. : FINALLY I CAN HEAVE A SIGH OF RELIEF!!!!!!!!!!
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